Assessing communicative language ability by means of Bachman and Palmer's model

Abstract EN

Assessing communicative language ability refers to the process of collecting data by means of tests in order to make inferences about test takers' levels of language knowledge, and to measure the extent to which they can use this knowledge in contextual target situations.

According to Bachman and Palmer (1996), this process requires the outline of frameworks delimiting the constructs to be tested and the development of methods describing how these constructs can be measured.

The main aim of this article is to introduce Bachman and Palmer's (1996) conceptualization of language assessment, which can be used as a basis for developing valid and reliable tests